Thanks for all the responses, you all make good points. Let me try to clear some of it up. This will be pretty sketchy since I don't have a lot of time to spend on it now.
First, it looks like we need to get more specific about the term "capitalism." As technically defined, capital is anything that has value because it contributes to further production. So cash is obviously capital because I can use it to buy labor or supplies. A factory is capital because it allows me to make products. Grapes can be capital if I use them to produce raisins. If I eat the grapes, though, they are not capital. So the goal of capitalism is to generate capital, in other words, to maximize the potential to make more stuff. Property rights and voluntary exchange are definitely involved, but they aren't sufficient. If I own 500 calories worth of cheddar cheese and you own 500 calories worth of feta and we swap, that's not capitalism unless I'm using the cheese to make something that I will sell to someone else for more than 500 calories worth of something. If I make an omelette and sell it to you for $5, and if $5 will buy me 700 calories worth of food, that's capitalism because I ended up with more than I put in. I'm using calories here as an extremely simplistic metaphor for "use value," which is how economists talk about the value of something independent of whether it's traded.
So if Stef has some other definition of capitalism than that, I guess my argument is a little pointless, but it would also be quite irresponsible on his part to play up something under the name of something else, and I don't think that's what he's doing. The above is consistent with what I've heard him say about capitalism, which is admittedly a lot less than many of you have heard.
Okay, on to some of the more specific points.
"Capitalist competition is a win-lose principle." - This follows logically from the definition of capitalism I gave unless the basis of exchange is infinite. So let's say we all play a game where we start out with 10 beans and try to maximize our capital (the beans we can use to grow plants) by swapping beans for other stuff. We have a finite number of beans, and we all want to get the most beans possible, so unless we decide beforehand to share the beans equally (in which case we are no longer capitalists because we are no longer trying to maximize our capital), we will end up with an unequal bean share. If there are infinite beans, the situation changes, and this is exactly why fiat currency is bad. Fiat currency (money with no tangible basis of value) can be produced ad infinitum, and when there is infinite money (or infinite beans), everyone could theoretically have as many as they wanted, but then there is no way to make truffles cost more than peanuts. On an infinite scale, 1 is approximately the same as 1 million. This is how hyperinflation works.
So why is it bad that some people have more beans than others? It's not automatically bad. It's only bad if two things are true:
1. Getting beans is required for survival.
2. You believe, due to your upbringing and culture, that you are inferior to people who have more beans than you.
These are two different point, I want to be clear about that. My first post in this thread dealt with (2), the second post was more about (1).
@Kevin Beal, resisting rape is not quite the same logic as the example I gave. I assume you are thinking of rape like this: an event where someone steals something from the victim in the sense that the victim owns his or her body and ought to control what happens to that body. The difference with the example I gave is this: the "victim" (in this case the person who claims to own the land) may not previously have owned the land. If you wanted to give an accurate analogy, you would have to say something like this: imagine a blow-up sex doll suddenly comes to life while you are using it and then claims you are raping it. When you started having sex (or living on the land), the doll wasn't alive (no one owned that land), so when the doll comes alive (someone shows up and claims the land) and starts to resist rape (kicks you off the land), you are SOL. Of course, that analogy is already ridiculous enough, so let me state it in more general terms: Capitalism is like consensual sex in a world where everyone is required to have sex. If you suddenly say, "Oh no, I'm being raped!!" the people in that world will say, "that's impossible, you are required to consent to sex by the economic system." Not sure if that makes it clear or more muddled, I'm guessing the latter.
@Alan Chapman - I think I answered most of your questions in the above, so I'll just address the unanswered ones here.
1. "What's the difference between capitalist competition and other kinds of competition." The difference is that, in other kinds of competition, I don't have to play. If I don't want to lose the football match, I just stay home. Can't do that with capitalism. This is really crucial, emboldening there so skimmers will see. If I said, "Slaves are always free to leave the plantation" or "Prisoners are always free to try to escape," you would think I was crazy. But if you say, "You are always free not to participate in the economy," the argument is the same. If I don't participate in the economy, my basic survival is threatened. I can't buy food because I have no money, and if I try to grow or hunt my own food, someone will step in and say I can't do that because I don't have the right to because I don't own the land.
2. "Why is it a problem that people can't afford things that they're 'taught by society to want.'" I think I already addressed this, but briefly: if your parents teach you that you should be successful and make lots of money, but they never teach you how, you'll go crazy. Similarly, in a system where some people necessarily have fewer beans than others and all people are necessarily striving to maximize the number of beans, there will always be some people who simply cannot get what they are taught to want, so there will always be people who go crazy (looting, rioting, terrorism, etc.... not that all looting and terrorism are a product of capitalism, but they are to some extent necessitated by capitalism).
3. "You mean that they throw tantrums because other people won't give them stuff?" Yeah similar to that, like how toddlers throw tantrums when their parents treat them abusively. And yes, I expect society to help create an environment where toddlers will not be subject to such abuses. (And before you say "toddlers can't work for what they want," remember that capitalism in this analogy is the abusive parent because it creates inequality by definition, at least so I've been claiming in this thread.)
4. "Can you provide a source for this claim?" There was a call-in show recently where he was talking about "male energy" in the world, framing the issue as one of live-or-die, hunt-or-be-hunted, etc. I don't have time to find it now, or time to find other examples, but that's the most recent one I can remember. I can come back and find links later.
@Love Prevails - You said, "you could just as well say choosing which friend's house to visit on a friday night is win-lose principle." That would be true if all the other friends whose houses weren't chosen didn't have the option of leaving their houses to get the benefit of the chosen house. If I buy an Apple instead of a Dell, the people from Dell can't show up with their party hats at Apple HQ and get part of the benefit (the profit). In your house example, the non-chosen friends can always just lock up for the night and come party (i.e. get the benefit) at the house I chose.
If anyone isn't bored to tears by this already, this discussion has been extremely useful and interesting for me, I'd love to keep it up. I'm sorry for the absurd length of my posts-- it would take me 3 times as long to cut them down. Thanks for reading!
